What happens next for the House GOP

A Meet the Press panel examines the effect the battle over Obamacare will have on the Republican Party.

Meet the Press

This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>i'd like to clarify some points here, too, for the audience beyond cr. the fact that we're talking about the
government shutdown
is separate from a debt limit. given what the
white house
went through in
2011
, it hurt the
white house
, it hurt republicans and it hurt
americans
not flirting with the debt limit. the president said, look, i'm not going to negotiate on this. the problem is where are the votes? he can't get votes in congress for the debt limit without congress, can he?

>>it's going to be a big test. i do think the specter of how this might tinker with the economy is certainly one that's out there, but look, i think the results of this are unknown and we have seen, you know, these sort of messy fights are very d disconsonant with people in real america because they don't see why people can't sit down at a table and come up with a real resolution for these problems.

>>you were concerned like others about the vote on
food stamps
this week. this is about size, scope, the direction of government. in a
republican party
, this is going to become a big campaign issue. it's going to be in
2014
but it's also for those who want to run for president in
2016
. the question will be, where were you on obamacare?

>>i think this country is facing a moment where we have to make a decision about what kind of nation and what kind of people we're going to be. the president recently, much to my chagrin, spoke about this notion of
american exceptionalism
, and clearly he isn't the only one in town that likes to push that notion that we as
americans
are exceptional. the actions in america this week alone gives us the reason to push back that claim. when
americans
want to shut down a government of political posturing, when you can kill innocent children at
sandy hook
and there's no real
gun control
debate, those who are supposed to protect our babies, and now you fire on those who are supposed to protect us, and nobody at this table believes a real
gun control
debate is going to come out because all this other stuff will push it to the side. it's not just mental illness, that's a real issue, but you've got this black guy running toward the police asking for help and they shoot and kill him. congress has a 60% approval rating and the answer is to shut it down? what kind of people are we going to be? if we don't correct this soon, we're going to lose our democracy. it's that serious.